This week I'm being thankful for
books. I really love reading. I love books. I work in a library and love being
surrounded by books every day. I love having access to books at all times. I
love visiting other libraries and bookstores. I love seeing my favorite books
on my shelves at home. I love hearing about new books and adding them to my
to-read list. I love keeping track of the books I read on my GoodReads list.
Books inspire me, teach me, comfort me, humor me. They touch my heart and
expand my horizons. They offer me the opportunity to experience things and
places I may never get to visit or see on my own. Can you tell how much I love
books? :)
One of my favorite reading
tools is the website GoodReads. Through this website, I can keep track
of the books I want to read, the books I'm currently reading and the books I
have read. I can rate them on a scale of 1-5 stars, I can write a review, I can
save quotes I like...so many wonderful things. I am also able to read the
reviews of other people (including friends/family who have accounts on
Goodreads), see lists of suggested books based on any number of subjects or
themes, and they also offer giveaways of books which you can sign up to
possibly win - and I've been happy to win three times! It's a really wonderful
and valuable tool that involves my love of reading along with my love of
keeping lists. Additionally each year, I can look at my stats through the
website and see how many books I read that year along with seeing how I rated
them and the longest book I read.
In thinking about being thankful for
books, I was looking over my Goodreads stats for the year and wanted to pick
out a few of my favorite books of the year and share them here. These books are
from a variety of genres, both fiction and non-fiction, and include two books
which I won through the giveaways.
What
Comes Next and How to Like It
by Abigail Thomas
This was the second book I won through
the Goodreads giveaway. I had never read anything by this author, but heard
about in a People magazine book review and had added it to my to-read list.
When I received the book in the mail I decided fairly quickly to start reading
it and quickly fell in love with her writing. The book is a collection of brief
essays, though really more like stories or memories. There is a bit of a
running theme, but mostly they are like stream of consciousness memory, quickly
moving from one thought to another, one story to another, one memory to
another. This quote sums up a lot of what that book was like:
“But
life doesn’t arrange itself conveniently into chapters, not mine anyway. You
can’t just slice it neatly into segments. And I didn’t want to write a novel. My
life didn’t feel like a novel. It felt like a million moments. I didn’t want to
make anything fit together. I didn’t want to make anything up. I didn’t want it
to make sense the way I understand a novel to make a kind of sense. I didn’t
want anywhere to hide. I didn’t want to be able to duck. I wanted the shock of
truth. I wanted moments that felt like body blows. I wanted moments of pure
hilarity, connected to nothing that came before or after. I wanted it to feel
like the way I’ve lived my life. And I wanted to tell the truth. My truth
doesn’t travel in a straight line, it zigzags, detours, doubles back. Most
truths I have to learn over and over again.” ~ Abigail Thomas
The book was wonderful and I
immediately wanted to share it and so I lent it to my coworker who also loved
it and upon her return of the book included this note - "Keri - Thank
you, thank you, thank you! I want to be like Abigail when I grow up." We
were both hooked and I quickly found copies of all her writings, both fiction
and non-fiction and we read through all of them. None had quite the same punch
as the first book (her latest book) for us, but they were all good and I am so
thankful to have been exposed to this wonderful writer whose writing really
touched me.
The
Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
“...what
will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through
books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?” ~ Elizabeth Kostova
I already knew that I loved this
author because I absolutely loved her first book The Historian. However,
I borrowed this book from a coworker and it sat on my shelf for months! Every
time I looked at it I never felt in the mood to read and it just seemed like it
wouldn't be interesting. Finally I was home and needed something to read and
grabbed it...it captured my interest instantly and I was so hooked!!! Many
reviewers on Goodreads hated this book, in fact it seems to be one of those
that you either love completely or hate completely and don't feel just so-so
about it. But I loved it and while I really wanted to figure out the mystery
and get to the end of the book, I also never wanted to book to end ever. It was
just so readable and enjoyable and wonderful. It's books like this one that
help make me love reading so much and I am so grateful.
Bread
& Wine: a love letter to life
around the table with recipes by Shauna Niequist
I
absolutely loved this book so much! I borrowed it first from the library, but
fell in love with it and knew I needed to own it so quickly purchased my own
copy. I really appreciate this author and her love for food, faith, community
and hospitality. So much of what she writes about really resonates with me and
feels like she is speaking my thoughts and feelings exactly. This book made me
laugh, it made me cry and it made me want to cook and invite people into my
home and it made me realize that loving food and hospitality are both things
that can be part of who God made me to be as well as ways of sharing His love
with others. She has become one of my very favorite authors (as I shared in my
first Thanksgiving post) and I am always trying to encourage others to read her
books - in fact, I've even purchased copies for some of my friends because I
knew they would be encouraged and blessed by them. I am so thankful for this
book and this author.
Daring Greatly: how the courage to be
vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead by Brené Brown
“Because true belonging only happens
when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of
belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” ~ Brené
Brown
I have been so encouraged and inspired by the writing of Brené
Brown and this book was one of my all-time favorites this year. I ended up with
15 pages of typed notes and seem to constantly find things in my life that
reference or reflect what I've learned from her studies and writing. This book
helped me to see how important it is to be vulnerable and real with the people
in our lives and how shame and fear can keep us away from the things we really
want. This is the type of book that lingers in your mind, that keeps sneaking
up on you in the strangest and newest ways...the type of book that you carry along with you forever on the
journey of life. It's definitely one I will want to read again and probably be
struck with new insights and lessons as I grow and change hopefully. I highly
recommend this book, in fact I lent my copy to my Dad to hopefully he will
enjoy it as well.
Furiously
Happy: a Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
|
I was happy to win a GoodReads giveaway of this book. I
didn't really know a lot about the author (although I had previously read her
blog post about Beyoncé the 5-foot metal chicken - LOL) or this book, but I
am a HUGE fan now. This book made me laugh out loud, snort, stop breathing
from laughing so hard and so much more. This book made me think about things
that I'd never really thought about. This book gave me more empathy and
understanding for the wild things your brain can make you think when
suffering from all types of mental illness - depression, anxiety, etc. I may
not have the same struggles, but we all have things we deal with and if we
can be more kind, more loving, and more sympathetic to others...then that is
a good thing. I'm so happy to have won this book and look forward to sharing
it with others and reading it again.
A
Theory of Light & Matter
by Andrew Porter
|
Usually the way I decide what to read each year
is very open to suggestion. I might hear about a book that sounds interesting,
or I might see a book that was returned to the library where I work and decide
to read it. Sometimes I borrow books from friends. Sometimes I'm lucky enough
to buy some new books and browse the bookshelves for new and exciting options.
Sometimes I'll look at my very long to-read list on Goodreads and pick
something. Often a book I read, especially non-fiction, will reference other
books and I'm inspired to seek those books out to read. This year, in addition
to these various ways of choosing what to read I decided to do a reading
challenge that my husband saw on Facebook early in the year. It was a list of
50 categories and they were fairly unique and it looked like a good way to
challenge myself and my reading. Currently, I have one book left to read.
I really enjoyed the challenge of this as well
as the opportunity to read books which I had always kind of wanted to read, but
never seemed to make time for or was ever in the mood to actually read. Books
like Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, The Little Prince by Antoine
de Saint-Exupery, and After the Fall by Arthur Miller. Some books were
exciting new finds like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by
Ransom Riggs, Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry (along with the rest of The
Giver quartet), The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, The
Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages, and The Kingdom of Little Wounds by
Susann Cokal.
Although I would have never chosen to read Savannah by
Eugenia Price, I did enjoy reading the book my Mom loves and my favorite part
about it was the natural way the author talked about God and the characters
relationship with God and dependence on God. It was not an overtly Christian
book, yet God and faith were always presented very matter-of-factly and as a necessary
part of life which is a lot how my Mom is and there is one part will stick with me. Upon
discovering some bad news that had no easy or immediate answers, the main
characters Robert and Eliza Mackay decided to simply pray "God, you know
the situation and you know how to handle it. Do what you will and show us what
we need to do, if anything. Amen" (something like this). I loved that and
will think of it often.
Although it's not the usual way I decide what
to read, I'm really glad that I took part in this challenge and enjoyed the
opportunity to try some new books and expand my book comfort zones. I
ultimately enjoyed just about everything I read and it definitely brought me to
some new favorite authors as well as the opportunity to re-read some old
favorites.
“Reading
is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to
merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we
read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us
also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of
ourselves.” ~ David L. Ulin
“Grow in
the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” ~ 2 Peter 3:18
Though not all the books I read are about God, they all teach me things and help me along this journey we call life. And everything we are exposed to allows us the opportunity to grow and learn and sometimes even things that aren't about faith can help to deepen or expand our faith. I'm thankful for books and all the ways they make my life better.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for books, for the opportunity to read and learn, and for the ways books can open us up to new experiences and feelings and thoughts. Thank You for parents who instilled a deep love of reading and modeled it often for me and my sister. Thank You for my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Overholt who taught me to read. Thank You for the teachers and librarians who helped encourage me to read and try new books and ideas. Thank You for my job in a library where I can be surrounded by books all day long. Thank You for friends and family who love reading and share new books with me and can get just as excited about the things we learn and read. Thank You for Your Word which is the best reading of all and thank You for helping me to finally make my way through the Bible. Help me to never lose interest in what You have to say. Thank You for loving us, we love you too. Amen.
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